I'm doing a brew day tomorrow on short notice. Unfortunately, I have no DME on hand. I plan on brewing a 1.050 beer with WLP001. The question is, should I do a starter with priming sugar or skip the starter?

Boil your wort, cool it and pull out a quart for your starter. Give the starter 12 hours and pitch.

Sorry but this option accomplishes nothing. 12 hours isn't enough time to increase the pitch rate. The "starter" may take off quicker than the full batch would, but will quit once it hits the main wort anyway...

Sorry but this option accomplishes nothing. 12 hours isn't enough time to increase the pitch rate. The "starter" may take off quicker than the full batch would, but will quit once it hits the main wort anyway...

I couldn't disagree more. 12 hours is plenty of time to get the cell count up to a safe level and then pitching at high krausen. Not only that, but what we're talking about here is a "real wort starter" or RWS, which is the holy grail of starters, so to speak, since the yeast are being conditioned on the actual wort they'll be going to town on just a little while later. They are popular with the no-chill folks since the have time to make their starters while waiting for their wort to cool.

i couldn't disagree more. 12 hours is plenty of time to get the cell count up to a safe level and then pitching at high krausen. Not only that, but what we're talking about here is a "real wort starter" or rws, which is the holy grail of starters, so to speak, since the yeast are being conditioned on the actual wort they'll be going to town on just a little while later. They are popular with the no-chill folks since the have time to make their starters while waiting for their wort to cool.

However, I would recommend pitching into a portion of the wort suitable for your cell count and adding the remaining wort after a day or two. More details in my book and my blog.

Or pitch into 1/10th of the wort. (Details on how this works in my book)

Also, a sugar starters in your case is fine. If you want peace of mind add some yeast nutrients as well. Continued propagation using only sugar will result in yeast that is not good at fermenting maltose and matotriose. It that takes several passages for there to be that significant of a mutation or selection.

According to Jamil in "yeast" starters over 1.040 SG do produce more cells but can stress them leading to flavor and attenuation issues. He also states "brewers should not believe the myth that yeast become acclimated to a high-gravity fermentation from a high-gravity starter".

That said, I concede your point on the 12 hour high krausen thing, assuming your yeast has peaked and just started slowing in 12 hours. At this point the cell count is done increasing and they are just chewing up the remaining sugars.

Perhaps the best way to use your wort for a starter would be to dilute the starter to 1.030-1.040 with boiled water. Then perform as normal using the high krausen (not necessarily 12 hours) as the gauge for when to pitch...